Australia’s sum total of historical emissions places us near the top of the world’s polluters. Despite our small population and the relatively small size of our economy, across history, we have emitted more CO2 from burning of fossil fuels than 94% of all other countries.

This fact provides some much-needed context for the present debate surrounding a price on carbon.

There is however, plenty of further context that needs to be provided for our emissions. For example, we should examine how our use of renewables has been evolving over time. The figure below, taken from a report for Environment Victoria shows how the share of renewables—such as wind or solar—in generating electricity in Australia has actually declined since 1960.

Yes, whereas we generated 19% of our power from renewables in 1960, we are now down around the 7% mark. Lest one think that this is inevitable, the next figure shows our share (from 2008; thin red line) against the trend for Denmark (the solid data points).

This graph leaves little doubt that it is possible to increasingly rely on sources other than fossil fuels to power an economy. Just in case you are wondering, during the period shown in the graph above, Denmark’s economy grew by around 44% altogether. So “green” energy and economic growth are fully compatible, although one will be forgiven for not realizing this by relying on the Australian media alone.

There is one more interesting context that we should consider for Australian greenhouse gas emissions during power generation. And that is the amount of CO2 emitted during the production of a kWH (a kilowatt hour, worth between 20c – 40c at current power prices). This is an important statistic because it goes beyond simply stating the share of renewables by also considering how “dirty” the non-renewables are. Coal is never “clean”, but it can be more or less dirty, depending on its quality, and the relative share of coal vs. gas also determines how much CO2 is emitted during power production even if the share of renewables is constant. So how much CO2 do we emit per unit of power generated?

The answer is shown as a large red data point in the figure below, based on data from the International Energy Agency.

What this figure shows is the approximately 140 countries in this data set rank ordered from worst emitters to least, based on grams of CO2 per kWh generated. There are three countries that emit more CO2 than us; they are Botswana, Cambodia, and India. The remainder use less—sometimes considerably less.

Yes, we beat Botswana, Cambodia, and India. All other developing countries, and of course all industrialized nations, beat us, sometimes by a considerable margin.

For example,New Zealand emits nearly 5 times less than we do to generate the same power—remember, this is the same unit power; we gain absolutely nothing from polluting more.

We emit 20 times more than Sweden—and Swedes don’t live in caves, unless you consider Volvos and Saabs to be caves.

If that weren’t bad enough, we emit 128 times more than Norway.

Let’s summarize the context of our emissions:

• Our historical burden of per capita emissions places us within the top ten polluters.
• We have decreased our share of renewables during the last 20 years whereas many other industrialized countries have increased theirs (together with GDP).
• We emit 128 times more than Norway per unit power generated and 20 times more than Sweden
• But yes, we beat three developing countries.

While this may not be much reason to celebrate just yet, the good news is that unless we consider ourselves inherently inferior to Skandinavians, we have a very clear precedent to follow. Being at least as sun-drenched and wind-swept as any other country on this planet, there can be no stopping us once we decide to catch up.

 The ‘green revolution’ and industrialisation of agriculture led to huge increases in crop production around the world. Now the pressure is on to feed 3 billion extra mouths in the next 40 years while the climate changes and the costs of energy and resources escalate. As a plant geneticist and physiologist, I see the future contribution to be made by plant breeders as valuable, but quantitatively small. Instead, changes in the expectations and actions of people will play the major role in steering us through some challenging decades ahead. Here I summarise some of the issues that will challenge food production and suggest that our greatest need is to recognise that ‘business as usual’ is not an option.

Breeding for yield

The ‘green revolution’ which combined (i) breeding of high-yielding varieties, (ii) the application of fertlilisers and pesticides, (iii) the increased use of irrigation and (iv) cheap transport fuels, led to huge increases in food crop production in the period since the Second World War. Global cereal production has increased three-fold per hectare and in developed countries using energy-intensive agricultural systems, yields of some crops have increased 5 or 10-fold per unit of land.

But what of the future? The IPCC in 2007 assumed global crop yield increases of 80% by 2050, continuing the trend of the post war era. But such increases in yields of some crops have already ceased. Yields of wheat have plateaued and while some gains continue to be made in maize and rice productivity, it is sobering to note that Chinese rice production only increased by 2% per hectare in the period 1997 to 2007 while in the preceding decade it increased by 17% (FAO 2009). Plant breeding has achieved an enormous amount but obviously there is a limit to how much more can be achieved. Modern soybean varieties intercept 90% of the photosynthetically-active solar radiation through the growing season and invest a whopping 60% of their biomass into the harvested seeds. There is no room for improvement there. We might be able to increase the rate of plant growth, but we do not know how to do that (Zhu et al., 2010).

Effects of climate change

Optimists point to the positive effects of increased temperatures and atmospheric CO₂ levels on crop productivity in the future. While it is true that increasing the temperature and CO₂ levels can increase plant productivity in some specific cases (depending on the type of plant and the place), the widely held view among plant physiologists is that any such benefits will be small, and will be outweighed by the negative impacts of higher temperatures, water limitations and extreme weather events (Ainsworth and Ort 2010; Long and Ort, 2010). Growing-season temperatures may be higher than the average (e.g.. a 3^oC average rise could be 4^oC in summer and 2^oC in winter). U.S. maize and soybean production have been predicted to fall by at least 30% by the end of this century under the IPCC scenario with lowest temperature rise. Sporadic heat waves have serious effects on yields such as the +6^oC heat wave in Europe in 2003 which saw record crop losses. Fertility and grain fill are adversely affected by high temperatures.

Effects of energy costs

Coupled with the increasing costs of transport fuels, chemicals and fertilisers as fossil fuel prices escalate, crop production per unit of land will be unable to keep pace with population growth and with the hopes of the people of developing nations. Major increases in crop productivity in developing nations are likely to be constrained by the increasing costs of implementing western-style industrialised agriculture. Thus, increasing demands for more food are likely to be met by clearing more land for agriculture, but such land is likely to be poor quality compared to the food bowls of the U.S. Mid West, Argentina or Europe.

Fertilisers

World agriculture consumes about 100 million tonnes of nitrogen fertilisers per year. Most of this fertiliser is manufactured from natural gas by means of the Haber-Bosch process. The methane (CH₄) of natural gas is oxidised to CO₂ and hydrogen. The hydrogen is then reacted with nitrogen from the air at high temperature and pressure to form ammonia. This process consumes as much as 5% of the world’s natural gas production. And it puts at least 300 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere every year. Eutrophication, soil acidification and emission of the greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and methane are other consequences of nitrogen fertiliser use.

We use 50 million tonnes of phosphate every year. China and the USA are the world’s biggest producers. The USA produces 19 % but 65 % of that amount comes from mines in Florida which may not last more than a few decades. Meanwhile nearly 40 % of global reserves are controlled by Morocco. The concept of ‘peak phosphate’ is real and we will see prices rise steeply.

Obviously such use of N and P fertilisers cannot be continued indefinitely (they are not ‘renewable’), yet without them, crop production in the industrialised nations will fall dramatically. From the perspective of the environment, using less is preferable. Breeders are already busy trying to select varieties that use N and P more efficiently but by using less, we may still need to compromise on lower yields.

Water

Water dominates crop yields. Warmer temperatures mean more water held in the atmosphere and less rain on average. The loss of some glaciers due to global warming will deprive some rivers of their summer flow. So both rain-fed and irrigated crops will face challenges in the future.  Two targets for plant breeders are drought tolerance and water use efficiency. These are complex traits but some progress is being made to produce plants that can tolerate episodes of drought. However, tolerating drought and growing under drought are two different things.

Migration of crop production

There are two emerging geographical trends in crop production. The most immediate of these is the leasing of land in foreign countries to produce food for import. Korea’s Daewoo Logistics announced in 2009 that it had negotiated a 99-year lease on 3.2 million acres of farmland on Madagascar. That’s nearly half of the arable land, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and Daewoo plans to put about three quarters of it under corn. The remainder will be used to produce palm oil for biofuels. Other developed nations are following suit. In a very recent move, Bangladesh has announced plans to lease crop land in Sub-Saharan Africa in a move that acknowledges its precarious position on food security. It is likely that such arrangements will lead to future tensions between nations if they do not lead to the types of benefits both parties hope for.

The second trend is less obvious and much slower. With global warming, crop producing areas will migrate slowly towards the poles. Thus the wheat belt of North America is predicted to migrate northwards into Canada as temperatures rise. However soil quality further north is less good, so yields may drop. In Australia the wheat belt is moving southwards, but it does not have far to go before it reaches the southern ocean. Eurasia will see a similar migration and this will shift production from one country to its northern neighbour.

Diet

The shift towards high protein diets in developing nations makes further demands on crop production. China imported 1.1 M tonnes of soybeans in 1990 but 33 M tonnes in 2007 (from 1% to 15% of global production).  Meat production can require as much as 5 times as much land to produce the equivalent amount of vegetable food (animals convert plants into meat very inefficiently). Animal production also contributes to methane emissions.

Civil unrest, political instability and conflict between neighbours

We have already witnessed civil unrest resulting from food shortages in Egypt, The Philippines, Haiti and elsewhere. We have seen some countries impose export bans on some of their crop products, to meet domestic demands (such as wheat in Russia and rice in India). There is continued tension between India and Pakistan for the water flowing in the Indus and Chenab river systems – a strategically vital resource for both nations. Countries at war focus more effort on fighting than on growing crops. Whenever civil unrest or conflict develops, productivity is threatened. Wikipedia reports 115 wars since 1990. If food shortages become more acute, then more conflicts will be triggered, and food production will suffer further.

Other threats

Other threats include changes in the distribution and severity of plant pests and disease, rising sea levels, flooding, storms, decline in soil quality (eg erosion, salinity) and diversion of resources into growing energy crops for biofuels rather than food crops. It is ironic that the industrialisation of agriculture was hailed as the ability to transform oil (petroleum) into food, but now we consider trying to do the reverse.

The future

Business as usual is not an option for future food production. Science and technology can help but does not have all the answers. Improved crop varieties will be created but improvements are likely to be incremental rather than transforming. We will need to adjust to different food supplies and expectations. Seasonal food should be appreciated. We will need to make better use of the food we produce. The cost of food will increase with energy costs and people in the West should expect to spend an increasing proportion of their income on food. Presumably as food costs rise, people will be less wasteful. Reducing meat consumption will be beneficial. Growing diverse crops in local communities and regions will become more important. Food produced by ‘people power’ will become increasingly important, relative to food produced industrially. This raises the possibility that developing nations might be better adapted to produce food with low inputs, relative to western nations that are currently hooked on high intensity agriculture.  Continued economic growth is the biggest threat so we need to campaign for population control and less dependence on consumption of energy and resources, particularly water, fossil fuels and minerals.

References

How do we improve crop production in a warming world? Ainsworth EA and Ort DR (2010) Plant Physiology 154, 526-530. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20921178

More than taking the heat: crops and global change. Long SP and Ort DR (2010) Current Opinion in Plant Biology 13, 241-248. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20494611

Improving photosynthetic efficiency for greater yield. Zhu XG, Long SP and Ort DR (2010) Annual Reviews of Plant Biology, 61, 235-261. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20192734

Professor Ross Garnaut, the nation’s chief independent climate advisor, doesn’t believe in worrying about the things he cannot change. He just works “quite hard” on the things he can. Western Australians were treated to an example of his hard work yesterday as he packed 3 engagements into half a day in Perth.

In his evening lecture at UWA, he examined what changes, if any, have occurred to the climate and to the world’s capacity to deal with it since the publication of his 2008 Climate Change Review. He told a capacity lecture theatre that the science has become grimmer but the technologies to deal with climate change have improved and continue to do so.

For video and audio of the full lecture click here. Professor Garnaut’s lecture will also be re-broadcast at the Piazza Screen in Northbridge on Sunday 12 June, at 3pm. The text below quickly summarizes the lecture.

Professor Garnaut said that with no binding international agreement and a national political landscape buffeted by struggles over policy, the saving grace in Australia had been community interest and action that demanded efforts from politicians to deal with climate change.

The minimum that Australia should be aiming for is to catch up with the rest of the world, which has already embarked on a path to mitigate global warming … and now that’s the maximum possible, with there being no risk that Australia might overtake or outdo any other nation.

The disruptions caused by unchecked global warming will be so devastating that ultimately there will be no havens anywhere in the world. Australia, already a country of climate extremes, will experience more losses than all other developed nations, yet we lag behind in taking action to reduce the effects of climate change.

Professor Garnaut pointed out that Australia is also a drag on the rest of the world. Reminding us that information about the actions of other countries are simply a mouse-click away, he provided an overview of mitigation efforts in the US, the UK, Europe, and China.

Norway, a country rich in fossil fuels, introduced a carbon price in the 90s and now has emissions of about 10 tonnes per person. Australia’s are 27 tonnes per head; nearly three times as large. The UK have committed to reducing emissions by 50% by 2025, and China is likewise aiming for huge cuts between 2005 and 2020. Professor Garnaut’s work with the US government leaves him in no doubt as to its commitment to carbon reduction, which is mirrored at the state level, for example California.

Member states of the EU, representing half of the people in the world living in economic conditions comparable to Australians, have had a carbon price since 2005. That the US and China don’t have such a price is sometimes trotted out as a reason for Australia to avoid one. However, Garnaut notes, their current mitigation strategies are more expensive than a carbon price. Refusing to adopt a price because these countries don’t have one is akin to promising to keep shooting ourselves in the foot as long as they do.

Professor Garnaut recommends that Australia start with a carbon price fixed for around three years until there is international certainty about trade and entitlements. 55% of revenue raised from the carbon price would be directed to low- and middle-income households as an incentive for them to reduce electricity use.

Of course, a price on carbon will also provide an impetus for a move to less carbon-intensive ways of producing electricity. Trade-exposed industries would initially receive blanket assistance of almost 30% of revenue. Ultimately this assistance would be governed by clear economic principles. About $2.5b would be invested in the development of low emissions technologies.

Perhaps the most crucial point of Professor Garnaut’s lecture was that to avoid severe disruption to the global climate, we need to do a lot more than we are now. He notes that the issues of climate change will remain, but our chances of dealing with them at reasonable cost will not.

We need to take a leaf from his book and all start working ‘quite hard’ to ensure that we deal with climate change to alleviate the effects we will otherwise all feel, economically, socially and physically.

Prior to his evening lecture, Professor Garnaut participated in a conversation with about a dozen experts and academics from Western Australian universities. Excerpts of that conversation will be made available on The Conversation in the near future.

It has often been claimed that Australian annual CO2 emissions are such a tiny fraction of the world’s total, around 1.5%, that there is no need for us to take action. If we are only responsible for such a small proportion, why should we bother with a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme?

This argument may seem plausible at first glance, especially because it seems to let us off the hook so readily.

However, even after limited analysis this argument turns out to be deeply flawed and misleading at many levels. The argument is flawed and misleading because it is ignoring the full context.

To provide context, we must first remember that there are about 200 countries in the world. If they shared emissions equally, no single country would emit more than ½ a percent of the total. So without going any further, our 1.5% is already three times more than would be expected if we had an equal share in the world’s total—clearly we do not. This reinforces the fact that looking at a single number, whether it’s 1.5% or 8% or 4.39875% is often meaningless; we must look at the full context. And this begins with a comparison of any given country’s emissions against those of other countries.

There is an additional context we must consider in the case of CO2 emissions: We must recognize the importance of the sum total of emissions across the last two or three centuries. Why? Because CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, and hence what matters to a country’s responsibility for climate change are its historical emissions—in the same way that if 5 housemates run up a debt, each person’s responsibility extends to their entire expenditures, not just last week’s excessive bar tab. Unfortunately, people’s cognitive apparatus is not well equipped to deal with quantities that accumulate, and so it is worth expanding on this point.

Historical emissions data are provided by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), which we link to from this website. These data go back as far as 1750 (for some countries) and they are the best available record of global annual emissions over time. (These particular data extend to 2007 and they are from burning of fossil fuels.) When emissions are summed across the available record, the top 25 all-time emitters are as follows:

(*For this analysis, the Russian Federation and the Czech Republic inherited all the emissions of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, respectively. This should be apportioned differently, e.g., based on the share of historical emissions by that part of the former, bigger, country. For simplicity I omitted that step here because it makes little difference for present purposes.)

You will note that Australia is 14^th—out of 200—in terms of cumulative emissions. This should clarify how misleading it is to talk about “only 1.5% of emissions are ours”. In fact, over history, we are responsible for a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere. This can be clarified further by plotting the (logarithm of) historical emissions of all countries against the rank position of each country (in other words, we order the countries from most-emitting on the left to least-emitting on the right). This is shown in the figure below:

(In these data, some administrative entities such as the Falkland Islands are considered independent “countries”, which inflates the total number of observations but that has no bearing on the rank position of Australia).

The figure clarifies that Australia has more historical responsibility for CO2 in the atmosphere than 228 other countries. In other words, we are more responsible for climate change than about 94% of all countries in the world.

There is one additional important point to be made: The data presented thus far are total cumulative emissions, not adjusted for population. The figure above and the earlier table are not per capita but they are the sum total of emissions. Despite that, we are ahead of Brazil, for example, which has roughly 10 times the population of Australia.

Australia has 1/3 of a percent (or .0031) of the world’s population—and yet we are number 14 on the list of total emitters and have more responsibility for global warming than about 94% of all other countries.

To provide full context, let’s examine what happens when we convert total historical emissions to per capita emissions. How much of a responsibility does each one of us in Australia have for the carbon emitted during the last 100-200 years? Like it or not, Australians have emitted 3,638,504,000 tons of carbon to date, and as you can see in the table below, each and every one of us carries a share of this historical burden that’s equivalent to roughly 172 tons.

Let’s place that burden into further context:

(Countries with a population below 2 million were omitted from this analysis because their per capita emissions often fluctuate considerably across time, suggesting that those estimates may not be terribly stable. For example, Luxembourg’s population is less than ½ million but their per capita emissions are very high. At least in part, this turns out to be due to the fact that German and French drivers fill up their cars in Luxembourg because petrol is less heavily taxed there, and the emissions then count towards Luxembourg’s. This is one of the reasons why per-capita statistics from small countries are easily distorted. *The Czech Republic and Russian Federation are again inheriting all historical emissions of their former countries for simplicity.)

We are within the top 10 emitters if we account for the size of our relatively small population relative to that of some other countries—for example China, which is in position 61 on this list. In other words, the country that is the favourite bugaboo of those who want to forestall climate action in Australia, is way down the list when it comes to the historical responsibility of each of its citizens.

Australians, by contrast are among the top 10.

There is no shirking that responsibility.

Sooner or later we must cut emissions. And of course we will, because the laws of physics do not negotiate. The only question is when we will finally begin climate action.

In the next post, we will explore that “when” and place it into its proper context, by considering what other countries have been doing already.

EMBARGOED TILL 14 JUNE 2011

The overwhelming scientific evidence tells us that human greenhouse gas emissions are resulting in climate changes that cannot be explained by natural causes. Climate change is real, we are causing it, and it is happening right now. Like it or not, humanity is facing a problem that is unparalleled in its scale and complexity. The magnitude of the problem was given a chilling focus in the most recent report of the International Energy Agency, which their chief economist characterized as the “worst news on emissions.” Limiting global warming to 2C is now beginning to look like a nearly insurmountable challenge.

Like all great challenges, climate change has brought out the best and the worst in people: A vast number of scientists, engineers, and visionary businessmen are boldly designing a future that is based on low-impact energy pathways and living within safe planetary boundaries; a future in which substantial health gains can be achieved by eliminating fossil-fuel pollution; and a future in which we strive to hand over a liveable planet to posterity.

At the other extreme, understandable economic insecurity and fear of radical change have been exploited by ideologues and vested interests to  whip up ill-informed populist rage, in which climate scientists have become the punching bag of shock jocks and tabloid scribes.

Aided by a pervasive media culture that often considers peer-reviewed scientific evidence to be in need of “balance” by internet bloggers, this has enabled so-called “skeptics” to find a captive audience while largely escaping scrutiny. As a result, Australians have been exposed to a phony public debate which is not remotely reflected in the scientific literature and community of experts.

Beginning today, The Conversation will bring much-needed and long-overdue accountability to the so-called climate “skeptics.” For the next two weeks, our series of daily analyses will show how so-called “skeptics” generally side-step the scientific literature and how they sometimes subvert normal peer review. They invariably ignore clear refutations of their arguments and continue to promote demonstrably false critiques. We will show that so-called climate “skeptics” often show little regard for truth and the critical procedures of the ethical conduct of science on which real skepticism is based.

Rather than acting as “skeptics”, the individuals who deny the balance of scientific evidence on climate change will impose a heavy future burden on Australians if their unsupported opinions are given undue credence.

Winthrop Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, Australian Professorial Fellow, UWA

Dr. Matthew Hipsey, Research Assistant Professor, School of Earth and Environment, Centre of Excellence for Ecohydrology, UWA

Dr Julie Trotter, Research Assistant Professor, School of Earth and Environment, UWA Oceans Institute, UWA

Winthrop Professor Malcolm McCulloch, F.R.S.,  Premier’s Research Fellow, UWA Oceans Institute, School of Earth and Environment, UWA

Professor Kevin Judd, School of Mathematics and Statistics, UWA

Dr Thomas Stemler, Assistant Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics, UWA

Dr. Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll, Senior Lecturer, School of Earth and Environment, UWA

Dr. Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleoclimate scientist, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Research School of Earth Science, Planetary Science Institute, ANU

Prof Michael Ashley, School of Physics, Faculty of Science, UNSW

Prof David Karoly, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne

Prof John Abraham, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, University of St. Thomas

Prof Ian Enting, ARC Centre  for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems, University of Melbourne

Prof John Wiseman, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne

Associate Professor Ben Newell, School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, UNSW

Prof Matthew England, co-Director, Climate Change Research Centre, Faculty of Science, UNSW

Dr Alex Sen Gupta Climate Change Research Centre,Faculty of Science, UNSW

Prof. Mike Archer AM, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, UNSW

Prof Steven Sherwood, co-Director, Climate Change Research Centre, Faculty of Science, UNSW

Dr. Katrin Meissner, ARC Future Fellow, Climate Change Research Centre, Faculty of Science, UNSW

Dr Jason Evans, ARC Australian Research Fellow, Climate Change Research Centre,Faculty of Science, UNSW

Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Global Change Institute, UQ

Dr Andy Hogg, Fellow, Research School of Earth Sciences, ANU

Prof John Quiggin, School of Economics, School of Political Science & Intnl Studies, UQ

Prof Chris Turney FRSA FGS FRGS, Climate Change Research Centre and School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW

Dr Gab Abramowitz, Lecturer, Climate Change Research Centre,Faculty of Science, UNSW 

Prof Andy Pitman, Climate Change Research Centre, Faculty of Science, UNSW

Prof Barry Brook, Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University of Adelaide

Prof Mike Sandiford, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne

Dr Michael Box, Associate Professor, School of Physics, Faculty of Science, UNSW

Prof Corey Bradshaw, Director of Ecological Modelling, The Environment Institute, The University of Adelaide

Dr Paul Dargusch, School of Agriculture & Food Science, UQ

Prof Nigel Tapper, Professor Environmental Science, School of Geography and Environmental Science Monash University

Prof Jason Beringer, Associate Professor & Deputy Dean of Research, School of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University

Prof Neville Nicholls, Professorial Fellow, School of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University

Prof Dave Griggs, Director, Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University

Prof Peter Sly, Medicine Faculty, School of Paediatrics & Child Health, UQ

Dr Pauline Grierson, Senior Lecturer, School of Plant Biology, Ecosystems Research Group, Director of West Australian Biogeochemistry Centre, UWA

Prof Jurg Keller, IWA Fellow, Advanced Water Management Centre, UQ 

Prof Amanda Lynch, School of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University

A/Prof Steve Siems, School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University

Prof Justin Brookes, Director, Water Research Centre, The University of Adelaide

Prof Glenn Albrecht, Professor of Sustainability, Director: Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy (ISTP), Murdoch University

Winthrop Professor Steven Smith, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, UWA

Dr Kerrie Unsworth, School of Business, UWA

Dr Pieter Poot, Assistant Professor in Plant Conservation Biology, School of Plant Biology, UWA

Adam McHugh, Lecturer, School of Engineering and Energy, Murdoch University

Dr Louise Bruce, Research Associate, School of Earth and Environment, UWA

(This is a two-part post on communicating about probability and uncertainty in climate change. Read Part II.)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines for their 2007 report stipulated how its contributors were to convey uncertainties regarding climate change scientific evidence, conclusions, and predictions. Budescu et al.’s (2009) empirical investigation of how laypeople interpret verbal probability expressions (e.g., “very likely”) in the IPCC report revealed several problematic aspects of those interpretations, and a paper I have co-authored with Budescu’s team (Smithson, et al., 2011) raises additional issues.

Recently the IPCC has amended their guidelines, partly in response to the Budescu paper. Granting a broad consensus among climate scientists that climate change is accelerating and that humans have been a causal factor therein, the issue of how best to represent and communicate uncertainties about climate change science nevertheless remains a live concern. I’ll focus on the issues around probability expressions in a subsequent post, but in this one I want to address the issue of communicating “uncertainty” in a broader sense.

Why does it matter?  First, the public needs to know that climate change science actually has uncertainties.  Otherwise, they could be misled into believing either that scientists have all the answers or suffer from unwarranted dogmatism. Likewise, policy makers, decision makers and planners need to know the magnitudes (where possible) and directions of these uncertainties. Thus, the IPCC is to be commended for bringing uncertainties to the fore its 2007 report, and for attempting to establish standards for communicating them. 

Second, the public needs to know what kinds of uncertainties are in the mix. This concern sits at the foundation of the first and second recommendations of the Budescu paper. Their first suggestion is to differentiate between the ambiguous or vague description of an event and the likelihood of its occurrence. The example the authors give is “It is very unlikely that the meridonial overturning circulation will undergo a large abrupt transition during the 21^st century” (emphasis added). The first italicized phrase expresses probabilistic uncertainty whereas the second embodies a vague description. People may have different interpretations of both phrases.  They might disagree on what range of probabilities is referred to by “very likely” or on what is meant by a “large abrupt” change. Somewhat more worryingly, they might agree on how likely the “large abrupt” change is while failing to realize that they have different interpretations of that change in mind.

The crucial point here is that probability and vagueness are distinct kinds of uncertainty (see, e.g., Smithson, 1989). While the IPCC 2007 report is consistently explicit regarding probabilistic expressions, it only intermittently attends to matters of vagueness. For example, in the statement “It is likely that heat waves have become more frequent over most land areas” (IPCC 2007, pg. 30) the term “heat waves” remains undefined and the time-span is unspecified. In contrast, just below that statement is this one: “It is likely that the incidence of extreme high sea level³ has increased at a broad range of sites worldwide since 1975.” Footnote 3 then goes on to clarify “extreme high sea level” by the following: “Excluding tsunamis, which are not due to climate change. Extreme high sea level depends on average sea level and on regional weather systems. It is defined here as the highest 1% of hourly values of observed sea level at a station for a given reference period.” 

The Budescu paper’s second recommendation is to specify the sources of uncertainty, such as whether these arise from disagreement among specialists, absence of data, or imprecise data. Distinguishing between uncertainty arising from disagreement and uncertainty arising from an imprecise but consensual assessment is especially important.  In my experience, the former often is presented as if it is the latter. An interval for near-term ocean level increases of 0.2 to 0.8 metres might be the consensus among experts, but it could also represent two opposing camps, one estimating 0.2 metres and the other 0.8. 

The IPCC report guidelines for reporting uncertainty do raise the issue of agreement: “Where uncertainty is assessed qualitatively, it is characterised by providing a relative sense of the amount and quality of evidence (that is, information from theory, observations or models indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid) and the degree of agreement (that is, the level of concurrence in the literature on a particular finding).” (IPCC 2007, pg. 27)  The report then states that levels of agreement will be denoted by “high,” “medium,” and so on while the amount of evidence will be expressed as “much,”, “medium,” and so on.

As it turns out, the phrase “high agreement and much evidence” occurs seven times in the report and “high agreement and medium evidence” occurs twice. No other agreement phrases are used. These occurrences are almost entirely in the sections devoted to climate change mitigation and adaptation, as opposed to assessments of previous and future climate change. Typical examples are:

“There is high agreement and much evidence that with current climate change mitigation policies and related sustainable development practices, global GHG emissions will continue to grow over the next few decades.” (IPCC 2007, pg. 44) and

“There is high agreement and much evidence that all stabilisation levels assessed can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are either currently available or expected to be commercialised in coming decades, assuming appropriate and effective incentives are in place for development, acquisition, deployment and diffusion of technologies and addressing related barriers.” (IPCC2007, pg. 68)

The IPCC guidelines for other kinds of expert assessments do not explicitly refer to disagreement: “Where uncertainty is assessed more quantitatively using expert judgement of the correctness of underlying data, models or analyses, then the following scale of confidence levels is used to express the assessed chance of a finding being correct: very high confidence at least 9 out of 10; high confidence about 8 out of 10; medium confidence about 5 out of 10; low confidence about 2 out of 10; and very low confidence less than 1 out of 10.” (IPCC 2007, pg. 27) A typical statement of this kind is “By 2080, an increase of 5 to 8% of arid and semi-arid land in Africa is projected under a range of climate scenarios (high confidence).” (IPCC 2007, pg. 50)

That said, some parts of the IPCC report do convey disagreeing projections or estimates, where the disagreements are among models and/or scenarios, especially in the section on near-term predictions of climate change and its impacts. For instance, on pg. 47 of the 2007 report the graph below charts mid-century global warming relative to 1980-99.  The six stabilization categories are those described in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

Although this graph effectively represents both imprecision and disagreement (or conflict), it slightly underplays both by truncating the scale at the right-hand side.  The next figure shows how the graph would appear if the full range of categories V and VI were included. Both the apparent imprecision of V and VI and the extent of disagreement between VI and categories I-III are substantially greater once we have the full picture.

There are understandable motives for concealing or disguising some kinds of uncertainty, especially those that could be used by opponents to bolster their own positions. Chief among these is uncertainty arising from conflict. In a series of experiments Smithson (1999) demonstrated that people regard precise but disagreeing risk messages as more troubling than informatively equivalent imprecise but agreeing messages. Moreover, they regard the message sources as less credible and less trustworthy in the first case than in the second.  In short, conflict is a worse kind of uncertainty than ambiguity or vagueness. Smithson (1999) labeled this phenomenon “conflict aversion.” Cabantous (2007) confirmed and extended those results by demonstrating that insurers would charge a higher premium for insurance against mishaps whose risk information was conflictive than if the risk information was merely ambiguous. 

Conflict aversion creates a genuine communications dilemma for disagreeing experts.  On the one hand, public revelation of their disagreement can result in a loss of credibility or trust in experts on all sides of the dispute. Laypeople have an intuitive heuristic that if the evidence for any hypothesis is uncertain, then equally able experts should have considered the same evidence and agreed that the truth-status of that hypothesis is uncertain. When Peter Collignon, professor of microbiology at The Australian National University, cast doubt on the net benefit of the Australian Fluvax program in 2010, he attracted opprobrium from colleagues and health authorities on grounds that he was undermining public trust in vaccines and the medical expertise behind them. On the other hand, concealing disagreements runs the risk of future public disclosure and an even greater erosion of trust (lying experts are regarded as worse than disagreeing ones). The problem of how to communicate uncertainties arising from disagreement and vagueness simultaneously and distinguishably has yet to be solved.

References

Budescu, D.V., Broomell, S. and Por, H.-H. (2009) Improving the communication of uncertainty in the reports of the Intergovernmental panel on climate change. Psychological Science, 20, 299–308.

Cabantous, L. (2007). Ambiguity aversion in the field of insurance: Insurers’ attitudes to imprecise and conflicting probability estimates. Theory and Decision, 62, 219–240.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007). Summary for policymakers: Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Retrieved May 2010 from http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf.

Smithson, M. (1989). Ignorance and Uncertainty:  Emerging Paradigms.  Cognitive Science Series.  New York:  Springer Verlag.

Smithson, M. (1999). Conflict Aversion: Preference for Ambiguity vs. Conflict in Sources and Evidence. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 79: 179-198.

Smithson, M., Budescu, D.V., Broomell, S. and Por, H.-H. (2011) Never Say “Not:” Impact of Negative Wording in Probability Phrases on Imprecise Probability Judgments.  Accepted for presentation at the Seventh International Symposium on Imprecise Probability: Theories and Applications, Innsbruck, Austria, 25-28 July 2011. 

About a month ago, we unveiled Shaping Tomorrows World, a website dedicated to exploring solutions to the multiple crises and challenges that are currently facing our societies.

Since then, we have had more than 10,000 visitors and 20,000 page views. We have posted articles written by well-known Australian intellectuals, such as Clive Hamilton and Carmen Lawrence, and we have had input from overseas scientists such as Dana Nuccitelli, who also frequently appears on Skeptical Science. We have also welcomed aboard Murdoch University, in particular their Institute of Sustainability and Technology Policy, who have made a financial contribution that will enable us to add more features to this website.

We are on Facebook and we have a growing number of followers in the Twitterverse (@STWorg).

So what is our “brand”, what are we seeking to accomplish and how will we get there?

After only a month, some of those questions remain to be resolved, but there are several things we know already.

First, our “brand” is defined by:

• Quality. Our posts are either written by academic domain experts or have survived academic scrutiny. All our posts are reviewed by our editorial board before publication.
• Civility. We do not censor opinions, but we insist on strict civility in the comments.
• A broad church: Our editorial policy emphasizes diversity in addition to quality. We have no predetermined agenda, other than intelligent exploration of solutions.
• Eclectic content. Quite unexpectedly, our content has been eclectic and has uncovered some unexpected—and hence intriguing—linkages, such as between obesity and carbon footprint.

We will build our blog incrementally but based on these principal attributes. One of the most exciting aspects of blogging is its dynamic nature, and this dynamism must necessarily translate into a certain amount of entropy and chaotic random walks—nonetheless, there is no harm in a strategic direction, and part of the purpose of this post is to propose and refine our strategy.

We seek to expand on the following broad issues in the future:

• Navigable archival data base. The ultimate goal of Shaping Tomorrow’s World is to create an up-to-date and at-your-fingertips data base of solutions and facts pertaining to a number of critical issues. This data base is slowly being built, but the left-hand menu on our home page provides an idea of what is to come.
• Health. Climate change is a health issue. Peak oil will be a health issue, as is peak soil, food insecurity, …. the list goes on. We have several medical practitioners among our team who will explore those issues in depth in the future.
• Energy. Transitioning away from fossil fuel is an imperative for the future—but what are the alternatives? The answer is intriguing and complex, and we expect several posts in the very near future on some of the alternatives.
• Cognition. Whatever we do in the future, it requires new thinking. Cognitive science knows plenty about how people think, how we succeed and how we fail, and this knowledge can assist policy planners in moving forward.
• Ethics. Many of the issues facing us have an ethical dimension: With poor countries striving to become wealthier by emitting CO2, and some wealthy countries refusing to cut emissions, serious moral dilemmas have to be resolved.

Our first specific goal is to examine the reasons why a country such as Australia, which often claims to contribute very little to the global emissions, must nonetheless cut emissions. We will commence a series of posts on this in the very near future.

Suggestions for other strategic projects are always welcome.

Why Earthworker Cooperative?

The United Nations has declared 2012 the International Year of Co-operatives in recognition of their contribution to socio-economic development and in particular their track record in impacting poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration.

Earthworker Cooperative will provide the vehicle for Australians to establish Eureka’s Future Workers Cooperative.

Eureka’s Future, the first of many manufacturing cooperatives making renewables in Australia, will spring from the work of the active members of Earthworker Cooperative.

The Plan

Earthworker Cooperative will provide finance, assistance with marketing strategy, R&D and networking of the various, loose strands of the social sector of the Australian economy into a powerful force for the collective good, on behalf of its member cooperatives, unions, shire councils, faith-based communities and individuals.

Earthworker Cooperative has a finance arm, Earthworker Finance, which is an account managed by MECU. As the social sector and its factories grow in numbers, we will invite superannuation funds to partner with Earthworker Finance in providing the critical mass of social capital required for a successful and powerful social sector of the Australian economy.

Eureka’s Future will manufacture solar hot hater (SHW) systems. Through the Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA) negotiated between unions and employers, workers can negotiate the SHW system as part of the wages outcome in the EBA. This provides collective purchase of the goods, the profit from which will be distributed in a number of ways:

•   An incentive will be paid to unions and employers for opening their agreement in a way which provides a better-than-cash deal to workers and manufacturing jobs which are sustainable in two ways – environmentally and long term manufacturing jobs which never leave our shores.

•   All of the rest of the money will return to the Workers Cooperative(s) to pay wages, invest in more work, fund R&D, provide 5% towards social justice.

 Reasons for choosing a cooperative structure

•   A cooperative cannot be wholly owned by any one party or entity. It cannot be bought out. This guarantees that the venture will remain Australian owned and operated.

•   As a cooperative has a closed loop of finances, the sole beneficiary of the income generated by the enterprise is the cooperative itself.  This ensures that in the case of Eureka’s Future Workers Cooperative, products manufactured by the cooperative can be sold at a competitive price and surpluses will be used to further expand activities of the cooperative. 

•   A cooperative structure is compatible with the philosophy behind the initiative where socially and environmentally responsible approaches to business, in addition to worker’s rights, are paramount.

Partnerships and support base

The most important partnership is with Dandenong manufacturer Everlast. They are a loyal and active partner who, in return for a royalty, will provide the product, assistance with the fit-out and finish of Eureka’s future and training of the first workforce.

Also significant is the relationship with Douglas Solar, which will provide the social enterprise with an approved system configuration and also support in training the system assemblers and installers.

Favorable statistics

•   A 2007 feasibility study showed that around 5% of Victorian trade union members have solar hot water systems. 

•   According to ABS figures, only 3.5% of households in the Latrobe City municipality currently have solar hot water.

•   Around 3% of Victorians currently have solar hot water.

•   Industry nominates average longevity of hot water systems at 12 years.

•   We believe other states of Australia will see similar statistics.      

How much do you think people are willing to pay? Why? 

Market Research (Strahan, 2007, commissioned by unions and Moreland Energy Foundation) indicates union members were willing to pay $2500 for a system in ‘06/’07.

For the reasons outlined above, we believe people will pay the final figure below. We give some calculations by way of explanation:

Eureka’s Future gas boosted solar system

RRP $5916 (Conservative in that we will be able to sell cheaper and includes installation cost of $1800)

Less:

•        RECS 31 @ $35 – $1085 ($5 held onto transaction costs)

•        Rebate Melbourne – $1500

•        VEEC’s 64 @ $9 – $576

•        Total reductions – $3161

•        Complete price – $2755 & Higher regional rebate – $2655

It must be noted that these figures were current before recent changes in the federal sphere to government support for renewables, and before the change in government in Victoria in 2010. We are yet to determine what these changes will mean to the figures.

However it is believed that as a price/tax on carbon is introduced, there should be monies available to support ventures like ours to get on their feet.

Product

Pricing

The prices of competing products are inflated through the margins which are placed on each component of the system as it makes its way through the supply chain. We anticipate the price could be reduced by as much as 30% when the business is in a position to manufacture the solar collectors as well.

As a co-operative, the business model has the advantage of not needing to pay dividends to share holders, which is estimated to reduce profit requirements by around 30% and cash outflow by 1.5 – 2%.

Marketing and sales

•   We need to sell 220 tanks per month to break even, or 2650 per annum. 

•   The business plan assumes that manufacturing levels will increase each year, with the first two years resulting in 5610 tanks manufactured and installed, an average of 234 per month. Everlast currently manufacture well in excess of that.

•   For the first two years, there are two target markets for the Eureka’s Future solar hot water system: members of Victorian trade unions and the local community in the Latrobe City municipality.

Key features of trade union member target market

•   According to the ABS, Victoria has 452,800 trade union members.

•   According to a study by Strahan Research, 76% of a sample of union members were buying or owned their home outright. This level of home ownership is relatively high.

•   Most homes tend to have older hot water services, with 53% of the Strahan sample having systems more than eight years old.

•   The vast majority of househild would be open to buying a solar hot water system, so long as it met their needs.

Assuming that customers from the trade union member target market will most likely be home owners/buyers with older hot water systems, the market is around 147,160 union members.

Key features of the Latrobe City community target market

•    Based on 2006 census data, Latrobe City has 27,284 households.

•    The vast majority of these households use electric storage hot water.

•    From 2011 – 2012, all of the electric hot water systems will need to be replaced with solar hot water systems or gas systems to meet regulatory requirements.

•    Very few of them are currently installing solar hot water systems as represented by less than 1% of households receiving available rebates in 2008/09.

Assuming that every 12 years a hot water service needs to be replaced, the market is around 2274 households.

Other reasons why Australian workers will support this campaign

•   As well as concerns around wealth-creating jobs for our country, what we produce, the way we produce it and where we produce it result in health problems for the individual, and ecosystemic problems for the planet.

•   Union-supported, worker-owned and -controlled cooperatives manufacturing solar hot water units, and ultimately the full range of green technologies, begins a new stage in Australia’s labour movement history which sees it return to a vision of a better world and not merely a bigger share of this one at the expense of others.

•   Jobs which never leave our shores.

•   Purchase of housing, childcare, health, education and other social products for the cooperative workforce.

•   Training for our young.

•   Lifelong, wealth-creating jobs.

•   Quality control, local access for a real ten year warranty.

•   5% of all surpluses from viable factories towards social justice.

•   A working class answer to the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.

How much do we need to become operational?

$3.2 million:

•   $287,190 for setting up the installation aspect of the enterprise.

•   $2.051 million for factory fit out.

•   $862,000 working capital for the first year.

From popular support to governmental inertia

Over sixty community organisations and every shire ccouncil in Gippsland support the Eureka’s Future Workers Cooperative project, through the Gippsland Climate Change Network. Despite this fact, and the support which Ministers we have spoken to from across the normal parliamentary divide have expressed for the project, we have continually hit an impasse where, because the entity does not yet exist (the whole point of a Just Transition I would have thought), Eureka’s Future does not meet the criteria.

Further, because the project brings none of its own funds to funding applications, bureaucracies are unwilling to fund.

That is why, after many years work around attempting to build a critical mass of community support in order to garner support from governments, we are now turning directly to the people.

We aim for a minimum of 100,000 people from around Australia as a membership base of the Earthworker Cooperative. From there we will approach governments, superannuation funds and others with the view to the larger sums we will need in order to reinvigorate and develop the social sector of the Australian economy around the manufacture of renewables.

What now, when Governments have failed us?
A direct appeal to the Australian people

1. 1. Open membership of Earthworker Social Enterprise Cooperative (EC) to all Australians who wish to contribute at $20. Raise $2 million for the factory machinery and fit-out & finish (contact the editors using “Contact Us” button for more details.)
2. 2. A 4 page hard copy which gives a popular, easy-to-read understanding of the whole project. Distribution across all shires and, in each case, culmination in public meetings with Q&A.
3. 3. Website, Facebook, Twitter, letters, town hall meetings across Australia.
4. 4. Senior endorsements and sign-on by community leaders.
5. 5. Train the Trainer in Earthworker Cooperative message.
6. 6. Support and link-in with new “Fair Go For Renewables” Bill.
7. 7. Rally towards end of 2011 or prior to election whichever comes first. “Australian manufacturing: Working our way out of the climate emergency” -“No jobs on a dead planet” -“When the people say Yes to the planet, who can say No?”

Leading public health organisations and the peer reviewed health literature have increasingly recognised the serious impacts for our health and quality of life should we fail to tackle climate change.

This has been reflected in the increasing number and urgency of advisories from peak health authorities and prestigious medical journals over the last decade.

The prestigious journal, The Lancet, has published a series under the overarching statement “climate change is the greatest threat to human health in the 21st century.” The World Health Organisation has attributed more than 140 000 excess deaths annually from climate change since 2004 and noted that many of the major killers – such as diarrhoeal diseases, malnutrition, malaria and Dengue fever – are highly climate-sensitive, therefore expected to worsen with further climate change.

Australia is not immune and has already experienced increased morbidity and mortality from additional heat related deaths, increased health problems from extreme weather events and increased mental health burden in rural areas from financial stress from failed crop harvests.

In effect, a challenge has been thrown down to all doctors to educate themselves, their patients and governments about the many serious health impacts that will befall humanity if we do not aggressively tackle climate change.

It is the role of our professional medical colleges to first and foremost examine and evaluate the relevant evidence as it applies to their area of health, and then use their expertise to advise accordingly. Like governments, the colleges have recognised that climate change is a current and growing health problem, but have failed to recognise its urgency and magnitude, and the scale of the response required. The chair of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians’ (RACP) climate committee resigned, presumably over the College’s performance.

A recent press release from RACP, while acknowledging climate change and its impacts, was contentious to many doctors. Its main focus appeared to warn of the adverse health impacts of a carbon tax in disadvantaged groups. Since the government had already promised a compensation package for disadvantaged groups, some doctors saw this as an unnecessary distraction from the main issue of getting a mechanism for reduced emissions to benefit the health of the entire population.

In contrast to our colleges, our peers overseas have been far more decisive and forthright. The Royal College of Physicians in London established the Climate and Health Council, with international committee members including one of this article’s authors. The American Medical Association has hosted three state-based professional medical education courses on climate change with more to follow, and has been emphasising the public health benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The emergence of Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA), with its main agenda being health and climate change, can be seen as a reflection of inadequate advocacy elsewhere in Australian medical organisations. Recently DEA used the words: “A price on carbon is a public health measure”. This is not a (party) political statement; rather, it is based on the fact that, in a market economy, pricing carbon is one key component in driving decarbonisation, and that climate change is an established public health problem.

It is now vital to recognise that global environmental changes such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and degradation of ecosystems on land and in the oceans are the major determinants of sustainability and of future population health and survival. In medical terms these are the life support systems for humanity and are therefore an integral part of medical teaching and action.

However, climate change is not a simple problem, such as smoking causing lung cancer. It is more complex and goes to the core of our modern high-consumption and energy intensive lifestyles; it demands fundamental re-evaluation of our values and our way of life, which we all, doctors included, find confronting.

Many political statements from elected representatives indicate a profound lack of understanding of the global and medical impacts of climate change. The RACP has the knowledge, wisdom and financial resources to offer scientific and medical acumen to all governments in carrying forward the necessary national reforms. To those doctors who have read the climate change literature, the health risks appear greater than arise from most of the conditions for which we currently treat our patients. Thus it is imperative that our medical colleges convey this health risk to governments.

The present public difficulty in climate change policy does not seem to arise from the integrity of the science; rather, it indicates divergent views on advocacy. As a goal, several Royal Colleges working together and producing clear advice to governments could be a powerful force in protecting the health of future generations.

The face of public health in Australia should include the illness and mortality caused by the coal industries and the potential health impacts from coal seam gas developments. These are some of the climate-related issues that the medical profession is neglecting in its advocacy.

Nevertheless these topics are at the fore in the advocacy of Doctors for the Environment Australia, with programs to visit members of parliament, develop environment and health policies, contribute submissions to Parliaments regarding potential health impacts of major developments and develop educational material for the public.

We call on the Royal Colleges to stand up and take a lead in addressing the greatest health threat of the 21st century.

This post is an edited version of a piece that previously appeared on the Climate Spectator. It is co-authored with David Shearman, FRACP Emeritus Professor of Medicine and honorary secretary of DEA, and David King, FRACGP, General Practitioner, senior lecturer in discipline of general practice and school of population health, University of Queensland, and Queensland representative on the management committee of DEA. All authors are associated with Doctors for the Environment Australia.

Let’s face it. The 1960’s were a time of radical change. And what we need today, like it or not, is another substantial transformation of our societies—from our current fossil-fuel based economies to an alternative means of economic productivity that is based on other sources of energy.

So what made the 1960’s happen and what can make the transition that we need during the next 10-20 years happen? This question has no easy answer. It may not even have a definitive answer at all.

Nonetheless, I would wager a guess, not as a scientist but as a curious observer of human nature and history.

And my guess is that non-violent transitions require one key ingredient that I have already mentioned elsewhere: Optimism. And optimism, in turn, is tightly linked to the perception that there is more fun to be had changing things than leaving them as they are.

The 1960’s arguably were powered by Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll.

One or two of those can be legitimately called fun.

Here now is the difficulty: All three of these drivers of the 1960’s have not only been explored in depth, but their personal and societal costs have been starkly brought into focus as well.

Moreover, however one might feel about Sex, Drugs, and what passes for Music these days, we can probably agree that there is no shortage of any of the above in today’s society.

So if it’s not Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n Roll that can motivate people to tackle the momentous transformation of society that we must embark on, what might it be?

How can it be “cool” or fun to stop driving a hot car, to switch off lights at home, and to put avocado skins in the compost while the plastic has to be recycled and leftover salad goes into the worm farm? Is “doing the right thing” enough to motivate millions of young people to act?

How does one turn cutting emissions into Woodstock?

How would Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix tackle global warming?

I would suggest that far from being trivial, those are some important questions for social scientists to muse over.

I would also suggest that whatever the solution may be, it will likely involve creativity and humour. Just to illustrate what this might involve, consider this idea, developed by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition:

We’re turning Murray St Mall (downtown Perth, W.A.) into a giant film set!

World Environment Day is on the 5th June and this year we’re producing a film of epic proportions! Picture it now: A mob of left-wing looking cyclists, environmentalists and alternatives, and a mob of business people advancing towards each other from opposite ends of Murray St Mall, meeting in the middle for one final showdown. What will happen? This film will highlight that climate change affects everyone, from all walks of life, and that a price on pollution benefits all of us, crossing the divide between the right and left.

A professional film production group led by highly acclaimed Richard Berney will be carrying out the film production work.

You too can contribute as an extra!

Choose Your Costume

Cyclists, Environmentalists, Alternatives: Come dressed as a colourful environmentalist, cyclist, or alternative. Meet at the EAST end of Murray St Mall, next to Barrack St, by no later than 10am for registration.

Business People: Come dressed in black and white as a white collar business person. Meet at the WEST end of Murray St Mall, next to William St, by no later than 10am for registration.

The Plot

Picture Murray St Mall, the long pedestrian strip running a few hundred metres between William St and Barrack St in Perth, with the central town square Forrest Chase in the middle of its length. At the East end of the pedestrian strip hundreds of left-wing looking cyclists, environmentalists and alternatives have gathered. It is obvious they’re all in support of action on climate change.

But just a few hundred metres away, at the West end of the pedestrian mall, an equally large crowd of a couple hundred people all wearing business suits, white collar workers, have gathered and they look ready to loudly voice their opinions.

What are they doing here? Is there going to be some sort of clash between these two groups?

These two crowds advance towards each other along Murray St, walking with determination and purpose. Their paces quicken as they approach each other. Ten metres apart they suddenly stop. Silence and sternness. A Braveheart battle scene with two armies facing-off against each other. The tension is so thick, you could cut it with a knife. You’re nervous with anticipation just watching. It lingers.

Some people in the opposing crowds start to raise their placards, or hold them forward at the front of the line, revealing their stance . Placard phrases like “Green Jobs!”, “Our Kids Are Worth It!” “Unlock clean energy!” and “YES to a price on pollution” start to emerge amongst both crowds. Wait, what? There is a murmur amongst all the people in the crowds and a moment of realisation that both sides are actually agreeing with each other! People from both crowds start stepping forward, and then everyone is cascading forward. Just like in the Braveheart scene where the Scottish are charging against the Irish, the two sides meet with smiles and outstretched hands, greeting each other amiably and merging together. People realise this is an issue that crosses the divide between the right and the left, that climate change affects all of us, and that we all have so much to gain from an effective price on pollution policy.

This may not be Woodstock but it sure beats putting salad in the worm farm.

So I’ll be there.